I still could not believe that it was 20 years ago when I first watched the original movie. That time, the special effect truly blew my mind as looking at the various landmarks of the world being blown away by alien attack was really amazing. Of course 20 years later, the sequel definitely is a must see movie for me and my wife. I even personally take a day off from work to watch the premier of this movie today. Yes, it was a little bit much, but having so many un-utilized leave days made me decided that this is as good time as any to take that leave. So we went to 1 of the theater nearest our home that was supposedly having Dolby Atmos effect. But we were both surprised that it was the usual 7.1 surround system (Cinema XXI Epicentrum, how could you???). Anyway, let's get on to the movie.
Brief Story Line
Movie started with scene of the alien from the original movie who was looking at the distress signal with messages from president Whitmore (Bill Pullman - While You Were Sleeping etc) and looked set to return to earth. He was no longer the cool president that led the fight between humans and aliens back then, but rather a tired & unbalanced looking older man. He was having dreams of the aliens. His daughter, Patricia (Maika Monroe - It Follows, The 5th Wave etc) currently worked for the new US president, Elizabeth Lanford (Sela Ward - The Day After Tomorrow, Gone Girl etc). They were preparing for 4th of July speech and was meeting captain Dylan Hiller (Jessie Usher) who was the stepson of Steven Hiller (played by Will Smith in the original movie). He was about to embark to the moon which now becomes the defense system against aliens.
In the moon, we were introduced to our 2 main characters, i.e. Jake Morrison (Liam Hensworth - The Hunger Games, The Expendables 2, etc) and his good friend Charlie (Travis Tope). Jake was given a hard time by his superior and was grounded despite his help to avoid an accident. Jake was apparently the boyfriend of Patricia and was good friends with Dylan, but due to some rivalry few years before, they have grown apart.
Dr. Levinson (Jeff Goldblum - Jurassic Park, Mortdecai etc) was meeting up with a warlord named Dikembe who was able to kill aliens in his country. They were investigating the only alien ship still left on earth during the first invasion. They found out there were some activities going on near the alien ship's location, and they were also curious about a special circle sign that kept popping up.
After all the introductions of the characters, which took around 30 minutes or so (yes, it's that long), we will finally see some action. An alien object suddenly appeared in the moon base and all the leaders of the world council decided to attack that object despite the objection from Dr. Levinson. After it was attacked, there was no casualty and the object did not show any danger detectable.
Jake and Charlie wanted to investigate the alien object and they enlisted the help from Dr. Levinson accompanied by Dr. Marceaux (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Dikembe and Floyd (Nicholas Wright). During this investigation, the mother alien ship much larger than the one from first invasion suddenly appeared near the moon. Moon as the defense center was instructed by President Lanford to attack, but to no avail. Jake and his friends' ship was stuck with the mother ship which was on the way to earth, creating all sort of panic and destruction on earth such as China, London and the US coast.
Dylan, Rain (Angelababy) the Chinese pilot who Charlie had a crush on and some other pilots escaped from the moon and returned to earth. General Adams (William Fichtner - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles etc) led the soldiers that were going to retaliate the aliens mother ship. Their plan was to drop fusion bombs by a bomber plane which would be protected by legions of war planes where Jake, Charlie, Dylan and Rain were amongst the pilots.
So can the humans successfully defeat the alien ship? What was their plan after 20 years of wait? What was the alien object that was shot in the moon earlier? And what will happen to all the characters introduced from the beginning? Watch them all in this exciting and tense war between humans and aliens.
End of Brief Story Line
Well, I gotta say that it was a good thing there was a lot of action after the 1st half hour as I believe it was having a slow pace and became little bit boring. There was plenty of dramatic moments here and there during the action packed 1.5 hour later. And some funny scenes were also included, usually involving Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner) and Floyd.
I enjoyed the special effects of the war and the major fight before the end of the movie. I even enjoyed some of the short touching moments in this film. However, I got to say that the special effects of the destruction seemed rather obviously computerized (perhaps due to so many movies nowadays that having CGI). But you will not be disappointed with the other special effects as this movie is directed by Roland Emmerich who had plenty of experience directing major destruction movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla and of course Independence Day.
For those of you who enjoyed the original movie as much as I did, definitely better not miss this one. It will bring back some of those nice memories. I think the new characters also quite enjoyable to see. While the characters from original movie such as president Whitmore, Dr. Levinson, his father (Judd Hirsch) and of course Dr. Okun were also cool and fun to see and certainly made the absence of Will Smith's character not really felt. And I think they are planning for another sequel since the ending did give us that impression.
Oooh, I do not believe that watching in 3D is better than in 2D. Also there is no additional scene after the end credit. So if you happen to hold going to the rest room during the 2 hours, you can leave your seat immediately.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment